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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Critical Mention

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ACritical Mention headquartered in New York offers their eponymous media monitoring platform for public relations and crisis management.N/A

    Zendesk Suite

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AZendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.

    $69

    per month per agent

    Pricing
    Critical MentionZendesk Suite
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Suite Team
    $69
    per month per agent
    Suite Growth
    $115
    per month per agent
    Suite Professional
    $149
    per month per agent
    Suite Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Critical MentionZendesk Suite
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
    Additional Details—20% discount available with annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Critical MentionZendesk Suite
    Considered Both Products
    Critical Mention
    No answer on this topic
    Zendesk
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    71%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    87%
    Would buy again
    123 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    57%
    Delivers good value for the price
    4 Answers
    85%
    Delivers good value for the price
    108 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    71%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    131 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    85%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    94 Answers
    Features
    Critical MentionZendesk Suite
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Critical Mention and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Critical Mention
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.6
    187 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.1186 Ratings
    Expert directory00 Ratings7.9127 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings8.4130 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings7.8131 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.3186 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings9.0185 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Critical Mention and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Critical Mention
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.5
    169 Ratings
    6% above category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings8.5163 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.5156 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Critical Mention and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Critical Mention
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.4
    182 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings9.1150 Ratings
    IVR00 Ratings8.076 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings7.4119 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings9.2178 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.4138 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Critical MentionZendesk Suite
    Small Businesses
    Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
    Score5 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Cision Communications Cloud
    Score8 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Meltwater
    Score7.6 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Critical MentionZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    1.6
    (21 ratings)
    8.7
    (225 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    10.0
    (43 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.6
    (98 ratings)
    Availability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (14 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (11 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.5
    (31 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (10 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (19 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Critical MentionZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Critical Mention
    Critical Mention is great for schools/businesses/etc. that want to know when they are in the news. Sometimes a brand's reputation can suffer greatly if you are not aware of an issue that was posted by a competitor or media outlet If you are not in the news a lot, there is no need for this product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk is good for small teams where work is not passed along to internal teams or situations where escalations lead to further customer interactions and no further oversight is needed. It is weak as a product for larger and medium-sized companies, where processes are in place that are not aligned with its workflow, as it is a very rigid tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Critical Mention
    • Critical Mention's customer service is excellent. Any time we've had a challenge finding a clip or anything, they are on top of it and go above and beyond to make sure we have what we are looking for quickly.
    • The ability to create tailored clips of each mention and quickly share them is unparalleled.
    • The reporting feature is fantastic. It makes it very simple to pull detailed reports and share them with interested parties.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Merging of the tickets with similar issues, it is easy to avoid confusion
    • Al global team somehow gets connected with different ways like Slack, with the Zendesk Suite which is so easier to highlight & the issue quickly
    • The best thing is that this tool gives you to send the message via chat-, email, call through the one single platform
    • Now AI has been added so it works good
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Critical Mention
    • I believe the one frustration I have with searching in general that if the closed captioning is not correct on the broadcast end Critical Mention will miss that data. Which is not a Critical Mention issue and does overcome depending on the search. Also, it would be great if you wanted to capture a complete 30 minutes newscast, it could be done by using the search. The clips need to be about to handle 30-minute programs.
    • One nagging issue when using Critical Mention is that it does not save e-mail addresses when sending a report and this requires a waste of time having to type in e-mails that should be able to be pulled from the customers' contacts.
    • Also, it would be great if you wanted to capture a complete 30 minutes newscast, it could be done by using the search. The clips need to be able to handle 30-minute programs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
    • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Critical Mention
    I gave this a 5 only because I do not make the decisions to renew. When I used this at my previous company, I also recommended to the decision maker to renew this tool as it was a crucial piece to the overall client objective
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Critical Mention
    It's great for quickly looking up a specific clip, but this platform makes it difficult to select and accurately report on a high volume of clips
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Critical Mention
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Critical Mention
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Critical Mention
    Look, Critical Mention follows up on an or phone call immediately or in the AM the following business day. I have called them after hours and get a live person to work through any issues that may have come up. Support seems to be job one with Critical Mention.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Critical Mention
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Critical Mention
    Critical Mention implementation was easy and fast. Their support and training were awesome.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

    The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Critical Mention
    Burrelles is confusing and outdated. Critical Mention works on the side of the account team and understands our needs better. I was able to share hundreds of outlets that I wanted to be included in my online search and Critical Mention added all of them in less than a day I was seeing better results in my searches. The possibilities with Burrelles seem limited while Critical Mention's online monitoring service really lets me craft reports the way I want to
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    At the time of evaluation, Dynamics had extremely limited knowledge and support capabilities. The UI is clunky, and reporting requires a deep understanding of the underlying data structure. Ongoing maintenance was costly and didn't provide a positive ROI in any sense of the term.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Critical Mention
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Critical Mention
    • Every week the department I am a part does dozens of searches on Critical Mention. We use it as our primary search engine for all things broadcast.
    • One negative aspect is that we do not know where Critical Mention gets their audience viewing numbers from so we just have to take it as their word.
    • Another negative aspect is that we are limited on the amount of time that one clip can be so we have to share several clips of the same show with our clients.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • More than anything, provided a boost to our perceived professionalism. The portal is a massive improvement on email only support.
    • Workflow optimization via macros and automations has enhanced response times and raise our 'first call resolution' metric.
    • Speaking of metrics; having them at all! Before Zendesk Suite we were email only so had no insight into agent and vendor performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Zendesk Suite Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations